


To conquer my nightmares

by CamelotLady



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 09:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3245351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CamelotLady/pseuds/CamelotLady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Parker woke up in the middle of the night to find her bed empty and cold, and her partner struggling with a bad dream that haunted him. Parker/Eliot established relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To conquer my nightmares

Parker was used to waking up alone. That was two years ago. All she cared about was stealing things for her, the money she would get from it and nothing else. Now things had changed dramatically. She was no longer sleeping in a cheap motel room, she had her own place, and her own shelter, something she could call home and people she called family.   
  
If someone would have told her this was going to be her life, she wouldn’t have believed it. She had been alone most of her life, and she was used to it. She never complained either, it had been her own choice. She tried not to get attached to anyone, afraid that one day they might go away and she would be left heartbroken, so she tried not to fall in love, even if she had to go against her own heart.   
  
That until she met him. The first time they had spoken he called her ‘ten pounds of crazy’ and she had laughed. He wasn’t the first one who had called her that. The first time she figured she had feelings for him was when he had gotten badly hurt during a con; he had a split lip, several bruises on his face and at least two broken ribs. She had cried on the way home, her heart tight inside her chest and scared like she had never been in her life. That’s how she knew that man had stolen her heart; there was no way around it.   
  
The first time they kissed, she had been sad. Some guy had done a terrible thing to a poor kid and she couldn’t help but feel slightly related to the situation. She had hidden inside her office and cried until she had no tears left, then Eliot had walked in and stared at her briefly to later take two long strides towards her. When he crashed his lips against her own she was caught off guard, but responded with equal passion.  
  
The first time they made love was unplanned but perfect. She realized she didn’t need a date or him cooking her dinner, she just needed him whispering sweet words in her ear and his arms wrapped around her waist.  
  
All that happened a year ago.   
  
When she turned around in her big bed (now their bed) she found it empty and cold. She sat upright and turned the light on, searching for any sign of him in the room but she found nothing. The house was quiet, except for cars passing by outside. For a moment she thought he had gone out, but changed her mind, she knew him better and he would never leave her without a note.   
  
Getting up slowly, she walked directly towards the big living room to find him there, sitting at the edge of the couch staring outside the window with a thoughtful look on his face. He didn’t notice her presence, or at least he pretended not to, until she was sitting next to him.   
  
“Are you okay?” she asked him. Though he nodded slowly his eyes told her otherwise. “For how long have you been here?”  
  
“I don’t know.” he responded. “A few hours maybe? I can’t tell.”   
  
He turned his head towards the windows again, his eyes fixed at some random point, even if his attention was not on her anymore she reached for his hand. He gladly took it, their hands clasp together in silent, she somehow felt desperate for him to speak. She knew Eliot was a quiet man and despite being together for almost a year, sometimes she had to shake him up for him to confide in her. Parker felt this was one of those days. He was pushing her away.   
  
“Would you tell me what’s wrong?” she asked him. He remained quiet. “Eliot…”  
  
“There’s nothing wrong.” he replied with a flat tone. “I just couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to wake you up, that’s all.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Why what?”  
  
“Why couldn’t you sleep?”   
  
He ran his hand over his face and sighed. There it was, whatever was bothering him that didn’t let him sleep, that made him stand in the middle of their dark living room in silence.  
  
“I had a nightmare.” he said softly, almost ashamed to tell her. “I couldn’t sleep afterwards…”  
  
Parker knew about the nightmares and she had learned to understand them. Sometime after they started sleeping in the same house, she had woken up startled with Eliot sweating profusely and breathing heavily. He had told her about the nightmares that haunted him once in a while and she had told him she was there for him if he wanted to talk about them. He was more than grateful. Right now she couldn’t understand what was different about it and why he looked so sad.   
  
“Do you want to talk about it?”  
  
“No.” he replied quickly. “No. It was nothing.”  
  
“Surely it’s not nothing if you’re this upset.” she told him. He avoided her inquisitive gaze again and focused on his clasped hands on his lap. “Eliot, please talk to me, you know you can”  
  
“I’ve had that dream before.” he spoke, his gaze still down. “It was the same scenario; an old building, there are a few men chasing me, I fight with them and I usually win. But this time—this time it was different. It wasn’t just me. You were there—I couldn’t stop them, they were too close and I couldn’t get there on time. They shot you. I could see the blood on my hands…”  
  
He stared at his hands as he spoke and his eyes were filled with melancholy and desperation. She held his hand between hers and gave it a light squeeze, allowing him to feel her and at the same time let him know she was there. It had been a dream.  
  
“I know it wasn’t real.” he continued as if he were reading her mind. “But it still scared me.”  
  
“You don’t have to be scared…”  
  
“Before I met you, this happened on a daily basis.” he said. “I learned how to deal with it, ignored them. They never affected me because I knew they weren’t real. But now…now I don’t know, Parker. It scares me to think something may happen to you and I can’t protect you. That’s why I don’t do this, grow attached to people. That’s why I don’t fall in love, Parker…”   
  
“Well, that is something you can’t control.” she replied, once again giving his hand a light squeeze and he shared a smile with her. “Neither can I, not that I actually want to. But if you ask me, I’ve also felt scared, terrified even, but it’s natural to feel this way. Scared. That means you have now something to fight for…me. Me and you. Us.”  
  
“Since when did you turn so wise?” he jokingly asked.  
  
“I don’t know. I think I’ve been spending way too much time with Sophie.” she replied.  
  
“What if I can’t take care of you?” he spoke, his tone serious and a deep frown appeared on his handsome face. “What if you get hurt and I can’t help you?”  
  
“Eliot, you know better than anyone that I can take care of myself very well, and so can you.” she told him. Still her words didn’t seem to help him feel better; on the contrary, he felt once more helpless. “You can’t be with me every single day, if something were to happen to me then that would be entirely my fault, for being careless”   
  
“Can you promise me something, then?” He asked her. She nodded. “I won’t ask you to promise me not to get hurt, ‘cause that’s not going to happen, but can you at least be careful? On the job. Don’t break into places with a lot of dudes with guns, just avoid them for a little while, can you do that?”  
  
“Wow, those are a lot of promises for a thief to keep.” she joked. “I can promise that as long as you promise to stay away from danger, or try to stay away from it as much as you can. No guns or knives of any kind.”  
  
“You know I don’t like guns…”  
  
“Eliot…”  
  
“Fine. I promise.”  
  
She moved away from her spot on the couch to stand in front of him, between his parted legs. He carefully wrapped his arms around her waist and she did the same around his neck, he pulled her toward him as closer as he could and rested his head at the crock of her neck, breathing her scent. They stood there for a while, tight in each other’s arms, until her legs grew tired from standing up too long and she pulled away.  
  
“Let’s go to bed, okay?” she told him, pushing a strand of hair behind his ear.   
  
“I’m not tired.” he replied.  
  
“Who said anything about sleeping?”   
  
He laughed softly and she grabbed his hand leading him towards their room, closing the door behind them.   
  
Parker liked sleeping alone, but she loved sleeping next to a very shirtless Eliot breathing softly by her side more.

THE END.


End file.
